I am thinking of hunting Black Bear in Quebec this spring.The area is about a 3 hours drive from here and has had a very good success rate the last few years.It is a do it yourself hunt.I will need to put up a tree stand and prepare the bait in drums.Any tips? What should I use as bait?

Dog food works, the dry kibble. Start saving bacon grease up too. Also find a bakery where you can get the old doughnuts and other sweets to dump at your site. Add whole oats and the dog food to the barrel and pour molasses on top.

Burning the bacon grease helps entice the bears to visit.

If you have access to beaver castor or even whole carcasses from a trapper you will do even better. Hang these in a tree over your bait barrel.

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Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
Dog food works, the dry kibble. Start saving bacon grease up too. Also find a bakery where you can get the old doughnuts and other sweets to dump at your site. Add whole oats and the dog food to the barrel and pour molasses on top.

Burning the bacon grease helps entice the bears to visit.

If you have access to beaver castor or even whole carcasses from a trapper you will do even better. Hang these in a tree over your bait barrel.

Thanks,Ann.

I heard about the dog food and old donuts.Have

you hunted black bear before?

Gosh, yes, several times. I made a few trips up the Province when I lived in Vermont years back. LOTS of bears if you go to the right area.

It might be worth paying someone local to pre-bait for you so the bears are accustomed to your bait site. Get your stand set up well before you hunt too.

Oats, sunflower seeds, corn most any grain.

Old pastry, bread are use a lot down here.

I like to sweeten and flavor mine a bit mix some sugar with water throw in a package of strawberry Jello.

Make the mixture thick pour it on and stir it into the grain with a stick.

One has to be carful about molding

Liquid smoke, anise oil, vanilla are great attractors scents.

How often are you planning on refreshing the bait.

Is it going to be on crown land or private land.

Are you going to be able to use a ATV to get bait site.

get those big bags of cheapo pop corn and mix it with bulk bags of jello mix you can make 50# (that is an awful lot of pop corn) for around $25.00 and scatter it around your bait site. Bears will eat the grains up quickly and you'll have a hard time keeping enough available to them but it takes them time to pick up all the scattered pop corn , BUT THE BEST PART IS IT IS LITE TO CARRY to a remote bait station.
Some guys will tell you a bait must stink to work I have always found a bear will eat rotten smelly meat but they will get sick on it and not come back like they to to sweets.

Bears eat about anything, but meat scraps create a nice pleasant aroma that draws them in. Beaver carcasses are a favorite out here .

Grizz

Molasses poured over oats as the main bait but as mentioned something to bring them in like frozen beaver carcasses from a trapper works great. Put the beaver in a wire cage attached to a tree so they can't steal it easily.

The area is on crown land-in a ZEC.It will not cost me much to hunt there.Will I need to use a steel drum, put in the bait and make holes in it and then chain it to a tree? How will I go about choosing or finding the area to put the bait? Do I use only one bait? What is a good, safe tree stand? I have never used a ATV but could rent one if needed.

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Originally posted by shootaway:
I am thinking of hunting Black Bear in Quebec this spring.The area is about a 3 hours drive from here and has had a very good success rate the last few years.It is a do it yourself hunt.I will need to put up a tree stand and prepare the bait in drums.Any tips? What should I use as bait?

Shootaway If you have no experience with this I would suggest you contact a couple guides in that area and see if they could help you get set up the first time. What you learn the first trip out may allow you to do your do it yourself the next time.It may cost a couple $ but it will likely increase your chance of getting a bear.

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Originally posted by snowman:

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Originally posted by shootaway:
I am thinking of hunting Black Bear in Quebec this spring.The area is about a 3 hours drive from here and has had a very good success rate the last few years.It is a do it yourself hunt.I will need to put up a tree stand and prepare the bait in drums.Any tips? What should I use as bait?

Shootaway If you have no experience with this I would suggest you contact a couple guides in that area and see if they could help you get set up the first time. What you learn the first trip out may allow you to do your do it yourself the next time.It may cost a couple $ but it will likely increase your chance of getting a bear.

I did not think of that but I will enquire about it.The area has a very high success rate.Since I do not get much time off, it might be a good idea.However,I would like to be prepared should I be on my own.

You really need a couple of bait stations a bait can go dry for many reasons.

You need to start baiting as soon as the bears are out of hibernation maybe a just before.

Hauling barrels and bait the required legal distance off the road is a lot of work.

Hauling a bear out is also a lot easier with a ATV but a game kart or sled also works.

I like to use natural choke points as areas to bait. Natural travel routes for bears. Near some type of water seems to work well.

A friend of mine is an avid bear hunter and has great success. One of his 'secrets' is to mix up a solution of water and Anise scent in a spray bottle. Every time he baits he sprays the area with the scent. Often a bear will be at the site shortly after baiting. You can smell the licorice scent for a long ways and obviously the bears can much further.

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One of his 'secrets' is to mix up a solution of water and Anise scent in a spray bottle. Every time he baits he sprays the area with the scent

No secret most bait hunters do it.

We have simplified our baiting. Due to my trapline we can moniter what they hit throughout the season. For the beginning you absolutely can't beat beaver. As the season progresses they seem to lose their taste for it but with any luck at all you're long done by then. Something that has been very good from an efficiency point of view is 50 pound blocks of licorice. Bears may or may not love it, but they cant seem to leave it alone. The real plus is its difficult for them to clean the barrel right out. A block or two would likely last the season if you shot your bear and went home like a normal hunter would do. We've also used skittles, candy hearts and any number of things. We were forced to name the biggest bear taken "Skittles", though that does seem a stange name for an over 8 foot black. Oiled oats are also a standby, and a couple bucks a bushell makes it hard beat from a cost effectiveness point of view.

I think people make baiting harder than it has to be; mostly by running around burning fuel while begging for free garbage; but also by using baits that require constant replenishing. If your plan is to give them cheap sweet stuff; you might just find that the cheapest sweet stuff is 50 pound bags of sugar. That will bump up any crap a notch.

If at all possible keep your baits close to water.

Smear fudge over the outside if the bucket and about head high around some of the trees.

Smells so good you will want to come down and lick it yourself.

Also wear rubber gloves when baiting and setting up your stand.

Try not to touch anything with your bare hands when going to and from the stand.

Good luck.

BH63

Early season before the sows emerge. Predator calls work. Spot and stalk as close as you can. Then 10 yards closer.

Many years ago I had the honor of hunting with one of the best bears guides around. Here are a few tips that he taught us.A bear knows someone is feeding him, only the person hunting him bait. 2 human scents and he is off to another bait. Don't feed him in the am, if you come back in the afternoon without bait, your screwed.scrape the area clean so you can see his front pads.Use farm molasses and corn in a corn bag and hang from a tree with the top part of the bag folded over to keep ravens out of the bait.Spread some molasses on the ground for the bears to make scent trails for other bears.Use a shooting stick because bear fever is no different than buck fever.If your bear keeps feeding at night,cut his food in half . The bear will get hungry and come in the following day earlier.Shoot for the shoulder, bears don't leave much of a blood trail because of the long hair, knock them down.Don't use poultry, it sours quickly and the bears will get sick and lay up for a couple of days. Good Luck! Watching bears is almost as fun as shooting them. Enjoy them, they are comical! Jeff

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Originally posted by 4sixteen:
Early season before the sows emerge. Predator calls work. Spot and stalk as close as you can. Then 10 yards closer.

No, timing is everything, no point going before things start to green up. Too many eager beavers out there. About the first of May is the rule of thumb here.

Grizz

Glass south facing slopes which green up early.

I have been twice; first time the guide used pastries under logs; the bears loved that and while he was digging out the donuts, you had time to shoot. Second time in Montreal, they used pastries, and beaver parts in the barrel, but cooked bacon, then left. Bears loved that too. The bears definitely didn't know, or didn't care, about who was feeding him and who was up in the tree.
But they both had been baiting them for a couple of weeks. I don't know if just coming in cold would work as well; I guess it would if bears were close enough to smell it. Of course, you pay the outfitter to do that for you, in advance.

Cheap dog food, popcorn , sugar and restaurant grease and start early baiting
Pretty simple

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Originally posted by shootaway:
The area is on crown land-in a ZEC.It will not cost me much to hunt there.Will I need to use a steel drum, put in the bait and make holes in it and then chain it to a tree? How will I go about choosing or finding the area to put the bait? Do I use only one bait? What is a good, safe tree stand? I have never used a ATV but could rent one if needed.

A plastic barrel works too. Just make sure you chain it to the tree. Bears will play with any barrel even if it's empty. Make the hole small so they have to work to get anything out of it.

Locate a place between food and water, bears are like any animal and have definite travel routes in fairly thick cover. Bears are not normally open country animals unless they're preferred food is in the open at certain times of year. Look for sign and scat.

Like mentioned earlier it might be a good idea to book a hunt with a local guide. The ones I've used in Alberta are a wealth of information and like to share it. I wish I'd done that years ago when we could still bait where I live in Washington state.

For tree stands my favorite are ladder stands but they are bulky to haul in.

Most of all have fun, bears are interesting to watch so let them settle down and start feeding before even thinking about shooting.

Too many guys try to rush the shot, end up missing or wounding and then try to blame it on their rifle or how nervous the bear was coming in. Of course they are cautious coming in. They have to fight to survive with each other. Let them settle and you will be amazed at how they will ignore you after they start feeding. I've even had them fall asleep at the bait after feeding for awhile.

Good luck with your hunt.

If Quebec is anything like Alberta you will have competition out there in areas known for bears. As a first timer at it, you really are better off to get a guide or go with someone who does it regularly. If you set up too close to someone else they'll get upset and so will you, maybe the bears will hit yours, maybe they'll hit the other one and you'll think they aren't there. It takes a bit of time to get to know an area and who else is in it, where to set up and when. And it is a fair bit of grunt work, usually on krappy roads.

One more tip. If you knock the bear down, shoot him again. It is amazing how hard it is to anchor a bear.

I would recommend taking a blood light and a GPS, so if you do have one get up and run into the thick stuff, you have a better chance of tracking it (and don't have to worry about getting lost).

BH63

I always hit them again even though they drop. Especially with a double rifle; I never fire one barrel at anything! Evens out the wear, you know.
Yes, they can run forever into the canadian jungle and might not bleed like deer do. Fat.

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I always hit them again even though they drop.

Again if needed.

Ammo is cheap compared to having your hunt ruined with a lost critter.

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Originally posted by p dog shooter:

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I always hit them again even though they drop.

Again if needed.

Ammo is cheap compared to having your hunt ruined with a lost critter.

One good hit with an adequate rifle is all it takes. They're not as big or tough as people seem to think. Especially baiting, the range is going to be short.

Grizz

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One good hit with an adequate rifle is all it takes. They're not as big or tough as people seem to think. Especially baiting, the range is going to be short.

Tell that to someone who thinks he had made the one good hit to only have the bear run off.

Many strange things can happen once you pull the trigger.

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Originally posted by p dog shooter:

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One good hit with an adequate rifle is all it takes. They're not as big or tough as people seem to think. Especially baiting, the range is going to be short.

Tell that to someone who thinks he had made the one good hit to only have the bear run off.

Many strange things can happen once you pull the trigger.

A possibility with any species. Doesn't mean you can't be ready to shoot again, if necessary.

Grizz

Bears are easy to kill. Relatively fast opening bullets through a shoulder, or chest on frontals will pile them right. Bullets well suited to deer hunting work well. People will shoot a 200 pound bear with a combo better matched to 2000 pound animals then are surprised when they run. Most bears just aren't that big, and even the big ones arent big on the grand scheme of things. The occasional giant exists, but I never found then to be tough. This one is bigger than many grizzlies.

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This one is bigger than many grizzlies.

Unless you're Danny DeVito's twin brother, that's a BIG bear!

when i lived there seal meat worked great ... a delicacy for them ...

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Originally posted by Biebs:

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This one is bigger than many grizzlies.

Unless you're Danny DeVito's twin brother, that's a BIG bear!

Yeah, he squared over 8 feet. I'm 6'1".

I don't care; I always fire both barrels anyway; it's not that the first good shot doesn't kill them; it is that if they run even 50 yards into the thick jungle in Canada, they are hard to find. In the dark.

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Originally posted by dpcd:
I don't care; I always fire both barrels anyway; it's not that the first good shot doesn't kill them; it is that if they run even 50 yards into the thick jungle in Canada, they are hard to find. In the dark.

As some one else said the famous last words of a trophy fee gone bad

Don't shoot again you hit him hard the first time

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Originally posted by Dogleg:

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Originally posted by Biebs:

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This one is bigger than many grizzlies.

Unless you're Danny DeVito's twin brother, that's a BIG bear!

Yeah, he squared over 8 feet. I'm 6'1".

Holllllyyyyyyyy Mollllyyyyy. GIANT!!!

Scouting around this evening and spotted this one. Extended winter conditions this year. Bears are out of hibernation now and plentiful around here. A spot and stalk proposition.

Intend to find a bigger one than that so wasn't shot.

Bear baiting is illegal in BC !
But you don't need to bait them, they are thick as flies here. Driving from my cabin yesterday I saw two bears. When the skunk cabbage comes out in the sloughs the bears appear and generally by the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend they go to bed.

Scouting around today. Spotted these - from a distance!